Cenni, corpi e canto. All'origine del linguaggio nella _Scienza nuova_ del 1744

This paper considers Giambattista Vico’s linguistic doctrine presented in the 1744 edition of the Scienza nuova, focusing on the question of the natural origin of language. Starting from the presentation of the Aristotelian-Cartesian conventionalist theses about the origin of language, we introduce Vico’s philosophical and philological reaction to them. Firstly, we present the Vichianian rehabilitation of poetry as a primordial form of language, insisting on the creativity and phantasy of primitive humans. Then, to investigate the theme of the naturalness of language in Vico’s thought, we focus on what he calls “the language of the gods”: a semiosis that is primarily gestural and graphic-visual, which takes human corporeality as its fulcrum. We finish by focusing on the evolution of phonetic communication: starting from the condition of a “silent language”, where the iconic element predominates, the phonic element imposes itself gradually and naturally from the onomatopoeia to the “articulated words” of “vulgar languages”.